Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

178 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
result in a wrongful conviction. In some cases the police themselves are able to
identify that the confession is false, as in case Mr R (Chapter 9), and no miscarriage
of justice occurs. This is most likely to happen when people volunteer
a confession to a crime of which they appear to have little knowledge. However,
sometimes the ability and willingness of police officers to look critically
at the possibility that they may have coerced a false confession are seriously
lacking, and even if they did suspect it they may not be prepared to do anything
about it. This kind of behaviour may be interpreted in terms of an interrogation
bias (Trankell, 1972), Festinger’s (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance, faulty
reasoning and erroneous beliefs (Gilovich, 1991) and poor police training and
negligence (Ofshe & Leo, 1997a).
Leo and Ofshe (1998a) argue that there are three main reasons why it is
impossible to estimate the number of police coerced confessions in the USA, or
the proportion of wrongful convictions they cause. These are the following.
� American police officers do not typically record confessions in their entirety,
making it impossible to determine what exactly happened during the
interrogation.
� There is no official record kept of the number of interrogations conducted
annually and how many result in true or false confessions.
� Most false confessions are not reported in the media and therefore go unnoticed
by researchers.
In terms of the consequences of false confessions, Leo and Ofshe (1998b) make
an important distinction between those cases that result in
1. deprivation of liberty prior to trial (e.g. after being detained in custody and
interrogated the suspects may not be charged, because the police accept that
the confession is false, if they are charged then the case may be dismissed
prior to trial, or defendants may be eventually acquitted in court) and
2. wrongful convictions (e.g. an innocent person is convicted and may serve
many years in prison, or even be executed).
In their review of 60 cases of alleged false confessions, Leo and Ofshe (1998b)
found that 29 (48%) had resulted in wrongful conviction (This study is reviewed
in more detail later in this chapter.)
FALSE, RETRACTED AND DISPUTED CONFESSIONS
Gudjonsson and MacKeith (1988) draw a distinction between the following
concepts.
1. Proven false confessions.
2. Retracted confessions.
3. Disputed confessions.
Once an apparently credible false confession is given to the police it is often
difficult, if not impossible, for the individual concerned to subsequently prove